One of the great ironies for those who are in higher education information technology is that, in the coming years, doing the best-possible job for their institutions will mean finding the optimal ways to replace their function with outside services. In other words, a critical part of their job will be to outsource themselves as effectively as possible. The reasons behind this new job responsibility are several developments that people may already be weary (and perhaps wary) of reading about: cloud computing, outsourcing, software as a service. What this comes down to is that much of what the current IT organization does for its institution will be performed by external entities in the future. In this article, the author argues that the IT organization needs to take control of its own future "in the clouds." He asserts that those who are in the IT organization can move one step further, not only in identifying which functions and when, but also defining what makes the externalizing of IT services a success overall.